West shortchanged – again

GHOST TRAIN A high-speed intercity train in motion at Athenry station, the start of the currently disused section of the Western Rail Corridor, which runs from Athenry through Tuam to Claremorris, and then on to Collooney in Sligo, via Kiltimagh, Swinford, Charlestown and Tubbercurry.

NDP consigns Mayo’s urgent public-transport needs to the MAD file

Any hope for a sudden transformation in central government’s attitude towards balanced regional development were dashed with the publication of the updated National Development Plan (NDP) earlier this month.
Heavy on rhetoric, it is light on commitment.
So much so that the Fianna FΡil TDs and Senators from the west are due to meet with Taoiseach MicheΡl Martin to express their dissatisfaction.
Éamon Ó Cuív told this newspaper last week that the west was being shortchanged in terms of commitments to transformational infrastructure, particularly road and rail projects.
“Connacht is still a province very deficient in good road and rail infrastructure. We want a fair share for the over 500,000 people who live in Connacht,” he said.
It feels like that is seen as too much to ask.
Take the Western Rail Corridor as an example. On its own it will not transform the west of Ireland, but commitment to deliver the extension of the old Limerick to Sligo railway line into Mayo would be a statement of intent from central government.
It would signify that it sees the west of Ireland as a solution, not a problem. It would demonstrate its willingness to encourage people to live in the rural west, not discourage.
Instead, we have a bleak reality. The rural west’s shrinking population was reflected in these pages in recent weeks, in the coverage of Lacken GAA Club withdrawal from the club championship this season due to dwindling numbers.
Meanwhile, Kiltane – a proud senior club in Mayo – has exactly one third of the national school figures it had in 1994.
We could go on.
Instead, the focus seems to be on continued urbanisation, and the central-government approach has meant that such urbanisation tends to happen in the greater Dublin area in particular, and south of the line stretching from Galway to Dublin next after that. Anything north of that line feels condemned.
There is not one metre of motorway in Mayo. No railway line serves Donegal.
Indeed, it would appear that the single biggest infrastructural project coming to this county, the new N5 Westport to Turlough road, is happening not because of any vision or grand plan for Mayo from the Government at large, but chiefly because of the intransigence of Mayo TD Michael Ring.
We should not need to rely on a politician beating the door down to get things done. A balanced regional economy benefits everyone. The problems in Dublin are the inverse of here; high property prices, congestion.
If only there was a solution before our eyes… If only there were parts of Ireland with the capacity to take an even distribution of our people. If only….
Instead, we’re left waiting and waiting for a government to act, when actions and decisive leadership seem to be qualities they do not possess.
Éamon Ó Cuív, invoking the great Monsignor James Horan, who ignored central government in building Knock Airport, put it succinctly when talking about the Western Rail Corridor. Ó Cuív said the railway’s extension from Athenry to Claremorris had been placed into what Monsignor Horan had called the ‘MAD file’.  
“It stands for maximum administrative delay,” Ó Cuív explained in a recent interview with The Sunday Business Post. “So you make sure nothing ever happens, but you never say no, and you hold it up all the time as a carrot out of reach.”
He added: “We are getting no significant public-transport project in this plan.”
And in the meantime the very fabric of Mayo’s rural parishes wilts.